Travelling to Festivals

According to a BBC article, travelling to and from events is the most environmentally harmful aspect of festivals. This was based on a report by Julie’s Bicycle, which is a not for profit organisation that was set up a while back to help the industry clean up its act. I’ve really only been to one big concert in the UK and by far – the worst bit was the nightmare of trying to leave at the end because everyone was getting in their own taxis – of course many of these people would have been going to exactly the same train station (the only one in a twenty mile radius of where the concert was at).

An oft cited statistic from me recently is from the DfT‘s recent report on traffic statistics for 2009. In it, it highlights that 84% of all passenger car traffic in the UK involves only a single occupant. This is a pretty crazy statistic – and I guess partly why there is so much traffic congestion. There is plently of empirical evidence to demonstrate the financial and environmental savings that can be achieved through improving the utility of transport vehicles. We’re about to start an activity with a very large retailer and a university to understand what incentives are enough to get people to share and what the real and perceived barriers are. While this is initially based around minicabs (as they are part of a regulated scheme), the same principles could apply to any form of sharing.